Will growing oil exports let Venezuelans take control of their economy?

Over three months after US forces captured then-Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro and installed an interim administration under former vice president Delcy Rodriguez, the oil sector of the country with the world’s largest estimated oil reserves is showing first signs of recovery.

Oil exports by Venezuela are now surging as the US-Israeli war against Iran weighs down on global oil supplies. 

In particular, oil shipments to US refiners have increased following a selective easing of sanctions that had previously reduced Venezuela’s ability to sell its most valuable commodity on the open market.

The dramatic removal of Maduro, who had ruled for over a decade amid a deep economic crisis, came after US forces abducted him along with his wife in a raid and moved them to New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center to face charges of alleged narco-terrorism.

Afterwards, US President Donald Trump said the US would help “run” Venezuela during a transition period, while announcing a $100 billion reconstruction plan for the country’s energy sector.

The interim government in Caracas has cooperated with Washington over the last three months. As a result, PDVSA, the state-owned oil and gas company of Venezuela, is now able to sell oil more directly to US and international buyers.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has urged American oil companies to invest heavily in the energy infrastructure of Caracas.  

As a result, oil exports, which generated barely $18 billion in 2025, have seen a sharp uptick in the first months of 2026.

However, this rebound is taking place amid Venezuela’s shift away from the long-standing “Bolivarian” project – a social movement launched in 1999 by former president Hugo Chavez to turn the country into a socialist state. 

Under the US-backed interim setup, Venezuela is emerging as an investment-friendly destination for American energy giants. 

Chevron, which is the only US oil company currently active in Venezuela, along with Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and others, has already demanded that the US government ensure “security guarantees” and an “overhaul of legal and commercial framework” to facilitate investment.

However, experts from across the region say that Venezuelans must reclaim control over their economy to prevent resource wealth from serving US strategic interests at the cost of national development.

They say that Venezuelans must prioritise sovereign control over the economy, as the post-Maduro opening can deepen their dependence on foreign powers.

Sebastian Schulz, a sociologist associated with Argentina’s University of La Plata, tells TRT World that US corporate interests in Venezuela’s energy sector represent a continuation of long-term American efforts to reassert dominance.

“I believe that Exxon Mobil’s demands for security guarantees are part of a broader strategy by US corporations seeking to regain control over Venezuelan oil, which they held until 2007,” he says, while pointing to the nationalisation of the energy sector during Chavez’s 14-year rule.

Schulz links the calls for urgent changes to legal and commercial laws in Venezuela to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” policy, which seeks to reactivate the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century political notion that treated Latin America as a “backyard” of the US.

“These statements are, therefore, not naive but part of a broader US strategy aimed at forcibly taking control of the Venezuelan economy by influencing its laws and sovereign decisions, in a context of hegemonic retrenchment,” he says.

Schulz also warns of deeper US aims, such as dismantling national institutions like PDVSA to enable forced asset transfers in the Orinoco Belt, a resource-rich basin in Venezuela that overlies the world's largest petroleum deposits.

“The US will likely seek to dismantle the institutional framework that allowed Venezuela to regain sovereign control over its strategic assets, not only to appropriate oil resources but also to ensure the installation of an allied government subordinated to US directives,” he says.

Schulz sees no evidence that such interventions benefit local populations, citing Iraq, Libya, and Nigeria as examples in which oil extraction advanced only corporate and geopolitical goals amid political destabilisation, without sustained improvements in living standards.

Venezuela’s inherent resilience 

Alfonso Insuasty Rodriguez, director of the GIDPAD research group at Colombia’s University of San Buenaventura, tells TRT World that reforms to Venezuela’s organic hydrocarbons law mean oil remains the property of the state.

“The state oil company, PDVSA, retains regulatory authority and contract approval powers (while) private firms assume investment, operational responsibilities, and associated risks,” he says.

This model is similar to the arrangements previously implemented with Chevron, he insists. 

It continues because PDVSA currently lacks the financial capacity to fully reactivate the energy sector on its own, he adds.

“The current situation cannot be understood as a simple ‘return’ of US companies,” he says.

“US policy towards Venezuela is not merely about energy – it is fundamentally geopolitical,” he says.

Despite external pressures, Rodriguez says internal resilience persists in Venezuela even after Maduro’s removal.

The $80 billion economy has grown steadily since 2021 across multiple quarters, supported by oil alongside agriculture, basic industries, local networks, and public-private partnerships, he says.

Central to this is the Bolivarian model’s “communal organisation”, he notes. 

The Bolivarian model, which seeks national control of engines of economic growth, is not paralysed: It is undergoing a “phase of active resistance and reconfiguration”.

Government priorities during the transition phase still involve preserving stability, essential services, strategic revenues, and diplomacy, he insists.

A net positive? 

Lorena Erazo Patino, professor of global studies at Colombia’s University of La Salle, tells TRT World that the net impact of US energy intervention on ordinary Venezuelans may not be positive.

“The history of energy interventions suggests that the net positive for the local population is rarely the primary driver,” she says.

Capital inflows can theoretically aid infrastructure or exchange rate stability, but outcomes often consolidate inequality and cause environmental harm, she says.

As for the compensation demands by major US energy players for their previously nationalised assets in Venezuela, she views them as a “pragmatic gateway” to global markets and legal certainty.

However, she says one should be mindful of public perception and the risks associated with such compensation.

“The Venezuelan public is likely to perceive these payments as a loss of national sovereignty,” she says.

Patino also points to geopolitical “tutelage” limiting alternatives for Venezuela. 

Sanctions and selective licences have curtailed access for traditional partners like China, Russia, and Iran, realigning Venezuela with the US, she notes.

A realistic way forward for revival, while preserving control over key drivers of economic growth, includes diversified partnerships with US allies such as India, the UK, and France, as well as Middle Eastern oil-services providers, she says. 

That’s because these nations can offer capital and technology within Washington’s financial architecture.

“The challenge of maintaining sovereign control depends on shifting from a model of unilateral dependence (on the US) to one of diversified strategic partnerships,” she says.